All the city's life is lost and forgotten. What we know of her greatness and her beauty is revealed by no records, but by the tangible evidence of indestructible things. Her coins are numerous exceedingly and of the purest beauty. They prove her abounding wealth. Whence that wealth came is suggested by the fact that the city gave her name to the whole gulf, which could scarcely have happened had she not been great upon the sea. Poseidon was the tutelary deity of the city, and on her coins he appears brandishing his trident, a mighty emblem of sea empire. These coins prove, too, the perfection of the art for which the city was renowned. When Phocæan Greeks founded the once famous city of Velia, some twenty miles away, it was to Poseidonia that they came for instruction in the art of building, drawn doubtless by the desire to match the superb temples which we see to-day, the envy of our builders as of theirs, though we, less fortunate, can summon no citizen of Poseidonia to teach us what our hearts and minds cannot of themselves design. It must have been a proud and splendid life which throbbed itself out upon this spot. At last the savage mountaineers stormed the city. Greek aid from Epirus gave back its liberty, but to no purpose. The mountain warriors returned and were quelled at last only by the onward march of Rome, which imposed on Poseidonia another servitude and changed its name to Pæstum. Thenceforwards nothing was left to the Greek citizens but their regrets, which they wept out yearly in a mournful festival, telling over the greatness of the days that had been. Even the mourning has been done these twelve centuries and more, yet still the temples stand there silent and deserted, and the walls mark out the empty circuit of the city.